Sunday, June 15, 2014

We left McLain State Park in a slight
rain storm. We were heading around the southern tip of Lake
Superior. Our path went through the Porcupine Mountains so there was
a little bit of up and down but not too bad until we got into
Wisconsin where it really started to pour and the wind picked up.
Y'all know how much I love wind (Not). Through Ashland which caused
me to think of my nephew Tyler and Carly who went to college in
Ashland and who are expecting a baby who is only a whole week
overdue. Come on kid – we want to meet you. Ashland also has a
bunch of murals painted on the side of buildings and I think we will
have to go back to check them out.

Ended up in the West Side Campground in
Washburn Wisconsin. Another RV park, but it has WiFi and Cable TV.
After five days without any sort of wired access, it is almost
overwhelming. Sensory overload. We are only a few miles south of
Bayfield and a couple miles north of Ashland. We are on the shores
of Lake Superior again but there are not really any sites directly on
the lake. But I can see it off in the distance. There is a gravel
walking trail right along the shoreline which we walked. Maybe about
a mile long. Miko went nuts in the waves again. She is now getting
into the water about shoulder deep. Won't be too long before I have
a swimming dog.

Saturday, June 14, 2014

Today we had to move the RV to a new
site. The one (83)we had been in for the last three days had been
reserved so we moved over to 79 which was still overlooking the lake.
We had to move anyway because we were out of water and our tanks
were full. Turns out that traveling with another person fills your
tanks up so much quicker than traveling solo. Duh... Emptied the
tanks with no accidents and settled in to the new home.

Tony thought it would be great to go
see another mine. Do I love my man or what? Off we go, leaving Miko
at home. This time we went to the Quincy Mine which is located about
10 miles south of us in Hancock Mi. What a different experience this
turned out to be.

First off, they take you down a 35
degree grade on the outside of the hill in a tram. 35 degrees is
super steep. They said that normally the miners would be going down
the shafts at a 50 degree grade at three times the speed that we were
going. Once we got to the bottom of the hill, we loaded into a wagon
which was pulled by a John Deere tractor. It pulled us into Level 7
of the mine. This mine eventually got to 92 levels, but everything
below Level 7 was flooded out. The Michigan Tech School had Mining
classes there and we saw a classroom carved into the rock. We
probably went in the hill about 1800 feet and stopped and got out.
Our tour guide Nate took us around the corner and explained how the
miners worked through the decades, showing us the various types of
drills and explaining how they worked. This mine was in business
from 1850 through 1940 or so. He also followed the cave tradition of
turning off all of the lights so we could see what true dark was
like. Back into the wagon and then the tram up to the top of the
hill.

Perky Audrey then took over the tour.
Quincy Mine had the largest steam hoist in the world and Audrey
explained how it worked and what happened to the copper once it got
out of the ground. This was an impressive piece of machinery - it was a gigantic cylinder. I
can't remember how much it weighed but we are talking tons. They
said that they have only extracted about 50% of the copper in this
mine, but it just became too cost prohibitive to mine the rest of it
out.

Home again – we are moving out in the
morning so there is some maintenance items that need to be taken care
of.

Friday, June 13, 2014

Since the Keweenaw peninsula was mostly
settled because of the copper mining, Tony thought it would be
interesting to go to a defunct mine. We headed north on the
peninsula to the Delaware Mine in the now ghost town of Delaware. It
was a self guided tour, cost $11 to get in but it was dog friendly
meaning that we could take Miko down into the mine with us. I was a
little concerned that she wouldn't be able to handle it because she
is not too crazy about closed in spaces. She did great. Me not so
much. First you have to descend about 100 steps. About halfway down
there was a gigantic iceberg which the guy at the top said came in
this past winter with the cold and they had to chainsaw it to get the
mine opened in the spring. Then you walk along a long corridor, I
think it was about 1450 feet. They kept it lit as as it was when the
mine was being worked which meant it was pretty darn dark. It was
just the three of us, Tony, Miko and me. Damp and cold. There were
signs along the way explaining various parts of the mine, but mostly
it was just a dark dark corridor. I got a little spooked. Not liking it too much.

After we got done with the Delaware
mine, we traveled further north on the peninsula to the town of
Copper Harbor. We stopped and had lunch at a place called the Pines.
I think it was the first time that I remember having a pasty which
is a meat/potato/carrot pie that the miners used to take down into
the mines. The waitress said that most people ate a pasty with
ketchup, me – I asked for Ranch dressing. How upscale am I? We
also stopped at Studio 41 which had 75 different Michigan artists.
Nice to see art again. There were lots of copper articles. There
was also a Pug puppy there who had a cleft palate. Black dog with a
tongue hanging out even though his mouth was closed

We then drove up the Brockton scenic
highway that goes along the west coast of Keweenaw. And I mean up –
extremely steep. I had to laugh, after the first steep, steep hill,
somebody had painted on the road like Burma Shave ads “You Are
Not Done Yet”. They were right, it just kept going
up and up and up. I am so glad that we were in the car instead of the RV. When you got to the top, you had a really great view of Copper
Harbor. Continuing on, we got to another scenic site which
overlooked Lake Superior and a few inland lakes. Breathtaking,
although we almost got blown off the mountain, it was so windy.

Home for dinner and to finish off the
fourth episode of Orange is the New Black – loving it.

Thursday, June 12, 2014

It rained all night – downpour type
rain, but the interesting thing is that rain on the roof of the RV is
not like rain on a tin roof,but more of a gentle pitter patter which
is great for sleeping so we sort of putzed around – sleeping in,
moving slow.

Tony took Miko for a short walk and
then we left Miko in the RV and took off for Calamut Michigan. This
was a copper mining town back in the day. Reminded me a lot of some
of the mining towns in northern Minnesota. Sort of depressed and
quaint at the same time. We ended up at the Calamut Visitor Center
which was in the old Masonic Hall. This was an amazing museum. They
had many interactive displays about life in the mines, life in the
town and the big troubles between the unions and the mining
companies. This was a fairly small town, but it had 63 saloons at
the height of the mining effort. Woody Guthrie even wrote a song
about a 1913 massacre that happened in the Italian Hall. There was a
Christmas party and somebody yelled Fire and in the panic that
happened, 73 people died, mostly children, just trying to get down
the stairs. On the third floor, there was a display about the Odd
Fellows and some of their rituals which I found very interesting.

They torn down the Italian Hall and this is all that remains of it.

We then walked down Fifth Street and
stopped at several different art galleries. I really enjoyed that.
Up to this point, when I've traveled with the RV, I have not been
able to stop at places like this because most of these places don't
have parking for RVs. Now, with towing the car, I have the ability
to now mix up my touristing and see much more.

We also came across a roadside attraction that commemorated a mega snowfall that occurred. Here is a picture of Tony standing next to the snowfall marker.

Got back to the RV around four to find
a wind advisory in effect. Winds up to 45 mph. I am so happy I am
not driving in this. The wind is wild and the lake is rather
agitated. It is like being on the ocean, the waves are so big. The
RV seems to be handling it OK, we can hear the roar of the wind, but
we are not shaking very much. I think it is because our nose is
pointing into the wind which is giving us a smaller exposure. It is
going to be a crazy night.

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Packed up and went over to the dump
station to dump out all of our tanks. I guess I can now call myself
a real RVer. They say that you can't call yourself a real RVer until
you have had a black tank accident. My sewer hose popped out of the
sewer hole and let's just say it wasn't pretty. I must say though
that my reactions were pretty quick for an old person and I got
everything under control with a minimum of spillage. Cleaned
everything up and got on our way across the northern part of the
Upper Peninsula.

A new Jack White CD had come out this
week and Tony became obsessed with getting it. What that meant was
that when we got to Marquette, we had to go into a Target (they were
sold out but we did some grocery shopping) and then on to a tiny tiny
Best Buy Parking lot where he was able to get his CD. I am
particularly proud of my maneuvering capabilities. Tony had measured
the length of the car I'm towing and that plus the length of the RV
is a little over fifty feet.

We are staying at McLain State Park
which is on the west side of the Keweenaw Peninsula. We are in spot
83 which is overlooking Lake Superior. Lots of woods around us –
can barely see any of the other campers. The only issue has been the
electrical hookups. For some strange reason, they are not very close
to where we park the RV. I've had to use several extension cords to
get hooked up. There is just electric here, we had to fill the water
tank at the entrance so we would have water. There is also hardly
any internet service or phone service. This will be interesting to
see how we do without being wired in.

Pulled our lawn chairs out and sat and
watched the sunset. Me with my wine of course. Something about wine
and sunsets just seem to go together.

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

We headed over to the Visitor's Center
and lucked out with getting a ranger who knew her stuff. We told her
that we had only one or two days and what should we spend our time
doing. They have boat rides where you can view the Pictured Rocks,
but they take two and a half hours and it didn't sound all that much
fun. I wanted to see waterfalls and hike a little bit instead.

First up was Munising Falls. You hike
a short distance on a dog friendly trail and see it. It is about
fifty feet high. Again I apologize about the quality of the
pictures. Some day I will figure out this iPhone picture thing.

Next up was Sand Point which is just a
very very sandy beach. Beautiful white sand. We took Miko down to
the water's edge and discovered that she is a wave chaser. Anytime I
have had her near a lake or pond, she is totally non interested, to
the point of refusing to even go close to the water's edge. Well,
let me tell you – she went nuts over the waves. Running back and
forth, trying to catch every single one. She ran herself ragged
trying to keep up with them all. I think it was the happiest I have
ever seen her – what a joy it was to watch her. After a while, we
had to drag her away from the waves. What is interesting is that
when we got back to our campsite, she heard the waves and practically
pulled my arm out of the socket trying to get to the waves.

After Sand Point, we drove to Miner's
Castle which is a rock formation jutting into the Lake. They have
several observation points which allowed us not only to see some of
the Pictured Rocks, but also we could see all the way to the bottom
of the lake because the water was so clear. I think this was
probably the favorite part of my day. It was one of those “Nature
is just so friggin' cool” type of days.

On to Miner's Falls. This is the only
time that we could not take Miko with us on the trail. She waited in
the car for us. It was really a cool day with temperatures in the
50s. As we walked away from the car, she barked a few times and then
did her little baby howl – she sounds so pitiful when she does that
howl. We had to walk about a ¾ of a mile through the woods. It was
really pretty – tall pine trees and some sort of blue flower
blooming everyplace – sort of solid blue carpet under the pines.
At the end of the trail, you descend down about 75 steps and see some
massive falls. This time I was prepared for the army of mosquitoes
and I could spend some time just watching the falls.

Back to the RV for some lunch and a
quick nap and then we went to two more waterfalls – the Alger Falls
and Wagner Falls. This falls were only about twenty feet tall.
Wagner Falls was pretty – it was more of a cascading falls over
several different levels and wider than the other falls that we had
seen.

We have spent quite a bit of time today
trying to decide if we are going to stay here in Munising for another
day or take off for the Keweenaw Peninsula further west in Michigan.
We will probably decide for sure tomorrow.

Monday, June 9, 2014

Walked around the campground, there is
a Disc Golf course here. We made a major mistake in forgetting that
it is mosquito season and we did not put on any bug spray. We almost
got carried away, there were so many of them. It made it very easy
to leave Holtwood Campground.

We drove up a scenic route along the
west coast of Lake Michigan. It reminds me a lot of northern
Minnesota. Lots of little towns and lakeshore homes. Pleasant
Drive.

Our next destination was the Munising
Tourist Park Campground on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan . I like
the name of the campground – it sort of reminds me of something out
of the fifties. We lucked out big time and got a place right on Lake
Superior. Our whole front window is filled with nothing but the
lake.

Unhooked the car – it took all of
five minutes. I dragged the lawn chairs out and a glass of wine and
settled down to watch the sunset. Going to like this place.

Sunday, June 8, 2014

Big day today. This is the start of a
trip with Tony. Tony has been rather hesitant to join me on my RV
adventures. The whole idea of travel is not something that appeals to
him. He truly loves his home and because his home is so satisfying
to him, he doesn't see much point in travel. Since I am sort of on
the opposite end of the spectrum, it has been rather difficult to
span that gap in a way that would make both of us happy. Tony has
graciously agreed to venture out and see where the road leads us.
Not only that, he agreed to go for a week and a half. This is huge.
Of course his week and a half is different than my week and a half,
but I'm sure that we will work something out.

We decided to go to the Upper Peninsula
of Michigan and along the south shore of Lake Superior. Several
tasks will be accomplished. I will be able to knock off three more
National Sites and Tony will be able to see what life on the road is
like. I have tentatively planned a partial itinerary, some of it
will be as the wind blows.

We spent the last few days getting
everything ready. I told Tony that this will be just like living at
home and he took me seriously. Let's just say, Tony does not pack
light. We got everything loaded up and ready to hit the road.

I bought a new rug for the RV. I wish it was a little bit bigger, but I think it works. You can see where Miko's bed is right by the driver's seat.

The other big thing today is this is
the first road trip where I am towing my car behind the new RV. I
used to have a trailer that I would drive the front wheels of my car
up on and tow that behind the RV. The setup I have now is totally
different. I had a base plate installed on my car which allows me to
tow the car with all four wheels on the ground. After spending about
ten minutes hooking it up this morning and then towing it behind my
RV, four wheels on the ground is definitely the way to go. Super
easy, I can't even tell it is back there. The main benefit though is
how easy it is to hook and unhook the car.

We took off about 10:30 from River
Falls and headed straight east across Wisconsin. Mostly four lane
highways until the last hour when we got off the main drag and
started going through some of the tiny little towns in rural
Wisconsin. What is so interesting about Wisconsin is that no matter
how small a town is, there will always be a minimum of two bars.
Each bar would have several locals hanging out in front on the
sidewalks. We rolled into the campground around 3:30.

We ended up in Oconto Wisconsin which
is just about 30 miles north of Green Bay. We are at the Holtwood
Campground, right on the Oconto river. Not a lot of charm, but it is
passable for an overnight visit. There are two types of camping
spots, the type where you have to back in and the pull thru ones
which is what I really wanted so I did not have to unhook the car.
Settled in and about the time we got everything hooked up, two guys
showed up and told us that we had to move because we had parked in a
reserved spot. Of course, they had forgotten to put up reserved
signs so there was no way we could have known. We had to move
because there where three rigs coming in, each of which were seventy
feet long (RV plus they were towing very big trailers) These made my
RV look like a baby RV. The managers apologized up and down about
the hassle and ended up giving us a free night of camping for our
troubles. One of the managers (the slightly inebriated one) went so
far as to tell us that we needed to come back again sometime and we
could have a whole weekend free. Hmmmm.

Showed Tony how to set up the RV,
washed the windshield and then had some sort of frozen dinner. Day 1
completed and everybody is still happy. Well, maybe not Miko – she
has such a hard time traveling, I really do think she gets a little
sick. She seems to have recovered although I'm sure she is not going
to be happy when we have to road trip again tomorrow.

About Me

Retirement is grand!! I'm sorry I waited so long to get started on this phase of life. I used to travel all the time but then I got involved in the world of Icelandic Horses. That took up all of my time and money. I still have a couple of horses. I'm now trying to fit husband, horses and extended travels into the very limited 24 hours of the day. As so many others have said....how did I ever have time to work?